The newspaper has been produced by a rotary press which is provided with a plurality of printing stations which are capable of printing on continuous sheets of paper, generally called "W-width rolled sheets of paper" (e.g. a volume A defined in Japan at the section "the rolled sheets for a newspaper" according to JIS P3001), with 4 pages on one side and 8 pages on both sides. The rotary press is further constituted by a plurality of paper feed stations for continuously feeding such continuous sheets of paper to the above mentioned printing stations and a folding station for overlapping, cutting and folding the continuous sheets of paper that have been printed. Typically in a series of downstream stages, the stacking, packaging and banding of the folded printed sheets of paper in a predetermined circulations are continuously carried out with a plurality of instrumental units adapted respectively therefor.
FIGS. 19 and 20 show a certain example of the rotary press which has been manufactured by the assignee of the present patent application, which has three constructional units which are serially aligned in a direction that is perpendicular to the axis of a printing cylinder. Each of the constructional units is capable of producing a newspaper of 32 pages and is constituted by one printing station 112 that is composed of four printing means stacked one upon another so as to be capable of simultaneously printing on both sides of a continuous sheet of paper W and is capable of printing on both sides of a continuous sheet of paper W in four colors, three printing stations 112' that are each composed of two printing means stacked one upon the other so as to be capable of simultaneously printing on both sides of a continuous sheet of paper W and is capable of printing on both sides of a continuous sheet of paper W in two colors, four feed stations 101 capable of loading four rolls of paper WR respectively therein for feeding the continuous sheets of paper W to these four printing stations 112 and 112', respectively, and one folding station 104 for overlapping, cutting and folding the continuous sheets of paper that have been printed.
In this rotary press, these individual printing stations and the folding stations are installed on a common machinery table 103 and are integrally formed thereon. Also, instruments in subsequent stages are provided on a separate floor, and there is provided a long path conveyer unit 114 (of which only a starting end in each constructional unit is shown) is provided in each individual constructional unit to communicate both the table and the floor with each other.
In comparison with the above, there has been known a rotary press in which a folding station is displaceably mounted, as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. Sho 56-6,951 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 05-254,084 in which the folding station is integrally coupled with a series of printing stations by being mounted on a common machinery table during a printing operation.
On the other hand, there has also been known a rotary press as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 51-146,902, No. Hei 05-193,092 and Hei 06-47,905 in which its folding station is made displaceable independently of the other stations therein.
Further, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 51-146,902 there is disclosed a rotary press in which its folding station is made capable of being independently driven. According to the drive mechanism disclosed in this publication, it is asserted that in advance of a printing operation any slackening of a continuous sheet of paper that may be caused ahead thereof can be eliminated, any difference in position between a printing image to be applied to the continuous sheet of paper and its cutting location that may be generated when a printing operation is commenced can be avoided, and any adverse influence upon the continuous sheets of paper that may be experienced during a printing operation due to a change in the paper quality, a change in the total number of continuous sheets of paper, and an acceleration and deceleration of the printing speed can be corrected.
Also, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 05-193,092 and No. Hei 06-47,905 there is disclosed a rotary press which is provided with a drive means designed to drive each individual printing station and the folding station separately, and it is asserted that the practice of the drive mechanism disclosed enables an estimated accuracy to be enhanced, a mechanical construction of the unit to be simplified, and a mechanical extension to be facilitated.
Notwithstanding to the above, with respect to the rotary press disclosed as having an independently displaceable folding station, there is no description or suggestion at all regarding a mechanism which should have to be provided so as to separate a printing station and the folding station from each other. On the contrary, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 05-193,092 shows in its accompanying drawings, FIGS. 1 through 6 a mechanism in which each individual printing station and the folding station are arranged as aligned in a row while these aligned stations are integrally coupled with each other by means of a horizontal axis or a horizontally synchronized axis.
In sum, in the conventional types of the rotary press as mentioned above which have employed a mechanism that is designed to operate in a state in which the folding station is integrally coupled with a series of printing stations, there have been encountered problems to be resolved that will be discussed below.
(A) While a continuous sheet of paper is cut and folded by the above-mentioned folding station during an operation of the rotary press,
(a) Vibrations are generated in the folding and the cutting cylinders when the continuous sheets of paper are cut, and the vibrations are propagated to the printing station adjacent thereto via a common machinery table to cause the printing stations to be also vibrated, possibly deteriorating the quality of the printing image even slightly but never negligibly; and
(b) Also, an extremely large sound is emitted when the continuous sheets of paper are cut and folded, which increases its magnitude as the operation is made faster, hence the folding station is an extraordinary noise source on the floor for a printing operation job; thus, a need has acutely arisen to reduce such offensive noise emitted from the folding station in order to improve the job environment on the printing operational floor.
(B) On the conventional rotary press, the printing stations are installed as aligned so as to form a row thereof that is oriented perpendicular to the axes of the printing cylinders while the folding station is installed in a row common to the above mentioned row so that the axis of the folding cylinder may be oriented perpendicular to the axes of the plate cylinders in the printing stations, thereby causing the prints to be discharged in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the folding cylinder; accordingly, the folding station needs to be provided with a particular print discharge mechanism which laterally projects from the row in which the printing stations and the folding station are arranged as aligned in series, as shown in FIG. 1 on page 348 and FIG. 2 on page 349 of a publication "Newspaper Printing, Chapter Printing--Revised Edition" published Oct. 31, 1980 by the Japan Newspaper Association; it follows therefore that an end of such a print discharge mechanism must be operationaly coupled to a conveyer mechanism designed to discharge the prints towards an instrument in a downward stage.
(c) And, therefore, an operator who is required to displace along a row in which the above mentioned printing stations and the folding station are installed as aligned and then to perform an operation at each individual station will be compelled to make a detour around the said print discharge mechanism which projects from the folding station, thus constituting a big obstacle when an emergency movement is required or when a comparatively large hardware, e.g. an exchange roller needs to be conveyed;
(d) Also, in relation to retaining a path of detouring the above mentioned print discharge mechanism, it is necessary to secure, on the side in which the said print discharge mechanism is projected, a broad space which is equal to the amount of projection of the above mentioned print discharge mechanism plus a width of the above mentioned detouring path, thus making it to become in vain; and
(e) Further, the prints that have been individually cut for discharge out of the above mentioned print discharge mechanism may have given rise to an inconvenience such as an aberration, clogging or drop in being transported by a conveyance mechanism in a transport passage which has a number of curves and is relatively long covering a variety of instruments in the downstream stages.
(C) Also, the rotary press is comprised of a constructional unit which comprises a plurality of paper feed stations, a plurality of printing stations which are at least equal in number to the paper feed stations and a single folding station; normally, as shown in FIGS. 19 and 20, with a plurality of such constructional units being serially arranged, their entire length becomes extremely long, say, 57 m or a bit more in the rotary press as shown in FIGS. 19 and 20. In this connection, it may also be noted that in a monthly magazine "ifra newspaper techniques English Edition", June, 1995, pages 52 and 53, published by INCA-FIEJ Research Association, there is shown a rotary press which extends in its entire length over 96 m.
(f) Therefore, a building which is capable of receiving the rotary press therein has heretofore been proportionally lengthened to cause the bad building balance and this has also resulted in a comparatively high building cost in order to be acceptable in its strength;
(g) Also, it has hitherto been difficult to secure a land which can be commensurate with the foregoing building requirement;
(h) Furthermore, it has hitherto been difficult to thoroughly inspect, and conduct an operation of, such a rotary press over from one end to the other by a small member of operators;
(i) On the other hand, in printing a newspaper, for example, if it is required to increase the number of pages of one set of a newspaper, e.g. from 35 pages to 40 pages, this requirement can often be met by increasing the number of the printing and paper feed stations. However, in case a plurality of constructional units are serially connected one to another as mentioned above, an increase in the number of those stations would result in an aberration in the arrangement of the printing stations relative to the folding station for each individual constructional unit. As a result, for each individual constructional unit, there unavoidably ensue a variation in the paper passage route and a difference in the printing cylinder loading positions; the consequence of these has hitherto been that a routine job required for a printing operation is susceptible of suffering a confusion and error and, the conventional rotary press that employs a plurality of rolled sheets of paper has been hard to use.
In connection with the above, it may be noted that there has hitherto been known a technique as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. Sho 50-150,401 intended to resolve the problems (c) and (d) as mentioned above. The disclosure of this publication is characterized in that a paper feed station, a printing station, a dryer and cooler station, a folding machine equipped with a paper sheet discharge unit and a counter stacker which represents an instrument in a downstream stage, are serially arranged in a direction in which a printing sheet of paper is advanced. If such a construction is applied to a rotary press as shown in FIGS. 19 and 20, it is readily apparent that the rotary press becomes much more augmented in its overall length. What is more, not only can the above mentioned problems (f), (g), (h) and (i) not be resolved at all, but they will further be worsened there. It may also be said that the gist of this publication is that it is intended to achieve a particular effect of the proposed utility model by restricting the layout of the elements that constitute the rotary press.